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PREFACE
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LINDA BEN-ZvI
Influencing Beckett / Beckett Influencing celebrates two special events in
international Beckett studies. The essays in this volume, originally presented
in June 2017 at the Samuel Beckett Working Group meeting held at the Karoli
Gaspar University of the Reformed Church in Hungary and organized by
Professor Mariko Hori Tanaka, Dr. Anita Rakéczy, and myself, was the first
International Beckett Conference ever held in Hungary. The Beckett Working
Group — a part of the International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR),
the largest theatre organization in the world, now in its 63" year — also
marked its twenty-first anniversary. Begun in Israel in 1996, the year the
IFTR’s annual meeting was held at Tel Aviv University, it is now the second
oldest of the twenty-three Working Groups in IFTR; it is also the only one
dedicated to the work of one playwright, an indication of Beckett’s unique
standing in Theatre Studies, as his plays continue to be studied and performed
in ever-increasing numbers thirty years after his death.
From its beginnings, the Beckett Working Group has been international,
drawing participants from around the world. At that first meeting I convened,
the eighteen present came from eight different countries. This mix of
cultures, theatre histories, and performance styles enlivened our discussions
and enriched the essays that resulted. From its inception, the group has also
been comprised of both Beckett luminaries in the field, including Martin
Esslin, author of The Theatre of the Absurd, and Ruby Cohn, one of the first
and foremost Beckett scholars, as well as young doctoral and post-doctoral
researchers attending a Beckett conference for the first time. Yet what was
unique from the start was the egalitarian and open nature of our meetings
and discussions, which encouraged established and new Beckett scholars to
intermingle and share research and ideas on an equal footing, with none of
that professional hierarchy that far too often shapes academic conferences
and hinders younger participants from critiquing or questioning the research
of established figures in the field.
For example, after twenty-one years, fourteen of which I chaired the group,
I can still recall one young, post-doctorate woman at our first meeting
presenting an original essay on Beckett’s handling of women characters in his
plays, using as her critical approach recent feminist theory. It was an approach
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